The leader Miguel Díaz-Canel visited this Friday the Defense Council of the Cubanacán Zone (CDZ) in the Playa municipality of Havana and urged to transform every available piece of land into gardens to alleviate the severe food shortage experienced by the Cuban population.
The visit took place during Defense Day, a day of military and territorial exercises that the regime systematically uses in 2026 as a platform to demand local food production in response to the agricultural crisis affecting the island.
According to the website of the Cuban Presidency, the President of the National Defense Council also called to take advantage of the vacant spaces that still exist in the area to grow food, both by organizations and families, as he emphasized, "there is a tradition in this, but we must take advantage of all the potential.”
The president of the CDZ Cubanacán, Reinier Lorenzo Reyes, presented to Díaz-Canel the main issues affecting a population of over 17,000 people in approximately 6.8 square kilometers, including blackouts, accumulation of solid waste, water shortages, sewage dumping, and crimes.
In response to these issues, the head of state directed the construction of water reservoirs in the areas experiencing the greatest scarcity, addressed cash payments to retirees, fought against abusive and speculative pricing, and identified all the paralyzed productive capacities in each territory to reactivate them.
He also mentioned the upcoming arrival of trucks and large containers to improve garbage collection in the municipality, and emphasized the importance of making progress on the 176 economic and social transformations approved in June, of which 134 already have legal backing. "There is much that can already be advanced," he stressed.
Accompanying Díaz-Canel were Esteban Lazo Hernández, president of the National Assembly of People's Power; Roberto Morales Ojeda, secretary of Organization of the Central Committee of the Party; and Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Also present at the meeting were the Army Corps generals, Álvaro López Miera and Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas, ministers of the FAR and the Minint, respectively; the Major General Amado Ricardo Guerra, Secretary of the Council of Ministers; Major General Ernest Feijóo Eiró, Chief of the Western Army; Liván Izquierdo Alonso, President of the Provincial Defense Council; and other leaders and officers, the report emphasized.
Cuban leaders repeat, week after week, the same refrain regarding food production. On August 14, Díaz-Canel visited the Roble-Chibás Defense Zone in Guanabacoa with an identical speech; on the same day, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz and Vice President Salvador Valdés Mesa toured Boyeros demanding increased agricultural production.
In July, Marrero urged to plant in Arroyo Naranjo with the phrase "you have land," while the food crisis deepened with no signs of reversal.
Cuba produces only about 111,000 tons of rice per year, compared to a demand of 600,000, and imports between 70% and 80% of the food it consumes, at a cost close to 2 billion dollars annually.
According to a survey conducted by the Food Monitor Program presented in May, one in three Cuban households has at least one member who went to bed hungry in the month prior to the study, a figure that is 9.3 percentage points higher than that recorded in 2024.
The Communist Party itself acknowledged in late 2024 that "the results we achieve today do not meet the needs of the population," an admission that has not halted the deterioration nor led to structural reforms capable of reversing it.
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